


Customer Service

by LadyOfHell



Series: Original Statements [5]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Attempt at horror, Diners, F/F, Horror, Original Statement (The Magnus Archives), Season/Series 01, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:48:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29638344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyOfHell/pseuds/LadyOfHell
Summary: Statement of Scarlett Trace, regarding her job as a waitress at a peculiar diner in Maine.
Series: Original Statements [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2166756
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Customer Service

**Author's Note:**

> It's gay, my dudes! I finally managed to write a wlw relationship and I'm very happy now.  
> This one is about the Stranger and I like it way more than my last work. Writing weird stuff is kind of my thing, I guess.  
> I like statements about the Stranger. Some of them freaked me out like "The kind mother", some were just really cool like "Monologue" or "The show must go on" and honestly, "Revolutions" is one of my favourite episodes in the whole podcast. The writing is really something else.  
> Anyways, I enjoyed writing this a lot.
> 
> Content warning! Discussion of an abusive relationship at the beginning.  
> Mention of Suicide (it's a very minor character and only mentioned briefly)

"Statement of Scarlett Trace, regarding the period of time she worked at a diner in Maine. Original Statement given 1st October 2009. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

Have you ever been in a relationship that ended ugly? I'm not talking just about a nasty breakup. I mean... have you ever had a partner who physically hurt you? Someone who lashed out at every minor inconvenience, who took his anger out on you, who freaked out whenever you talked to another man? Because that's what I went through.  
My relationship with Thomas had been great in the beginning. Skip a few months and I had become a regular at the local ER. When I tried to break up with him, he broke my arm. I guess in his twisted mind, that was only fair.  
Things finally escalated when he saw me chatting with a male coworker after work. It's silly, because I'm pansexual, but he never cared when I talked to any other gender. Only men. I wasn't even talking about anything personal with said coworker, we were discussing a work issue. Still, it got me a very ugly black eye, as well as a concussion.  
I got away unscathered. Well, except all the wounds from earlier, of course. As soon as I felt better, I waited for him to go to work. Then, I packed a bunch of my stuff, took a cab to the airport and boarded the first plane that flew to the United States. I didn't even bother to call work. That may have been a bit drastic, I know, but I wanted as much distance as possible between Thomas and me and even the entire ocean seemed barely enough.  
I felt better as soon as my feet touched foreign ground. He couldn't follow me here. I had told nobody where I was going, only wrote a few messages that I was going away for a while and that everything was alright. Noone knew that I was in Maine. It was a fresh start, far away from my tormentor and for the first time in months, I found myself almost calm.  
The worst part was the driving, honestly. My priorities were: apartment first, car second, job third and it was astoundishingly easy to find a one room apartment I could afford, so I got a car quite soon. You wouldn't believe how much effort it took to drive on the other side of the road. More than once, I found myself on an empty road and drove on the left side until some car almost crashed into me. A temporary problem, yes, but it caused a few scary situation.  
Owning a car made it easier to find a job, because I was living in a remote area and taking a cab to the nearest city everyday would become quite expensive. That fact alone made me thankful for my bright red 1989 Ford Fiesta I had aquired for a few hundred dollars, even though the thing felt like I could fall apart if you looked at it the wrong way. I was worried about that everytime I was driving, but this was also a temporary problem. As it turned out, my neighbour was a mechanic and offered to patch it up in exchange for one dinner.  
I agreed. Of course I was not interested in dating yet, after just escaping such a dysfunctional relationship, but I still agreed. I told her about my situation beforehand and she handled it really well. She didn't ask, didn't press me about details, but told me she'd listen if I ever wanted to talk about it. We still had dinner. She said it didn't have to be a date and a friendship would be perfectly fine for her if that's what I prefered. Spending the evening with her was the most fun I'd had in months.  
Finding a job wasn't difficult, at least not with the low expectations I had. I knew that sooner or later I would return to England and that there was no need to get some fancy, well paid job. Back at home I had worked as a secretary, so I didn't have any special qualifications anyways. I simply drove to the nearest diner and asked if they needed a waitress.  
The job interview was fairly normal. I mean... I couldn't remember the face of the man, even if you held a gun to my head, but I've never been good at remembering faces. He looked somewhat generic I think. Someone you see and forget immediately.  
It didn't matter though. We discussed some details and I got the job. When he shook my hand his smile was a little too wide and his skin was cool like glass, but it wasn't unsettling enough for me to think twice about starting the job. Just a little bit off. I thought that I was just nervous and it was nothing.  
My first shift was afternoon of the following day. Andrea – my neighbour, you remember? - wished me good luck and invited me to her flat for dinner, to celebrate. I was looking forward to this, so much that I almost wished for my shift to be already over.  
When I arrived at work, the diner was empty. My Ford was the only car in the parking lot, what was kind of weird, because shouldn't there be at least the cars of the other employees?  
I went in and there was the same man I'd had my job interview with. The manager, I guess? Or maybe even the owner. I greeted him politely and asked him if there was a separate parking lot for employees because I definitely didn't want my car to be towed, but he denied. That confused me a little, but I found an explaination quickly. Not many people were working this shift and all of them lived close to the diner and had walked here, or they didn't own a car and came her by bus or took a cab. Sounds realistic, right? It was enough to calm myself.  
There was a small, but brightly lit room, where I could put my uniform on. It was a little uncomfortable, to be honest. I had no problem with wearing pink, I love pink. But the skirt was a little short and the blouse was a little tight and after everything that had happened with Thomas... I guess you get my problem. Anyways, the uniform was otherwise really pretty. A bit old-fashioned maybe, as I mentioned bright pink, and the name of the diner was embroided on the front, just above my chest.  
"Vito's".  
A simple name. I guess the man I had talked to earlier must have been Vito, but I couldn't remeber him actually introducing himself.  
I pulled the skirt as far down as possible without looking ridiculous and stepped outside again. Vito was gone, but now there was another waitress. I don't remember what she looked like or if she was young or old or even what hair colour she had. She introduced herself as Anna, that's all I know about her.  
She showed me the basics and I dare to say that I learned fast, because I had already worked as a waitress during school. After that, I went to the kitchen to look where I would be picking the food up. There was one chef, as well as three other cooks. They didn't acknowledge me because they were busy cooking, which was weird, because there weren't any customers yet. I greeted them and they still didn't look at me. They didn't move either. For a while, I just watched them and they didn't move an inch from their position, just stood painfully still. One was stirring a pot counterclockwise, in a steady rythm like a robot. One was sharpening a knife. Not muliple ones, just one knife for an insane amount of time. One was cutting onions, one after another, but the pile besides him didn't get any smaller. The chef, and this will sound insane, had a raw chicken in front of him and he was pulling bones out of it. A lot of bones. I don't remember much about biology but I'm pretty sure chickens don't have that many bones.  
I turned around and walked away, back to the front area. I wanted to ask Anna what the deal with the kitchen staff was, but when I returned, the sun had already set and it was dark outside. Anna approached me and handed me my bag and my coat. She smiled, told me I would fit in perfectly and she was looking forward to see me tomorrow. Apparently, my shift had ended without me doing any actual work.  
I didn't question it, just took my stuff and went back to my car. My shift would have ended at seven pm usually, but when I started the car, the clock showed that it was already ten pm.  
Considering the insane amount of time that had passed, as well as Anna's statements, I legitimately thought I had suffered some sort of blackout. I thought about going to the doctor, but as you may know, that's quite expensive in the US, so I figured I'd just wait and see if it happened again.  
Andrea was worried when I got back home. Dinner had gone cold at this point, so we ordered pizza and watched late-night talkshows. She asked me to consider quitting, but I was convinced that it had just been my mind playing tricks. I knew I was capable of blocking memories out completely because I had done that a few times in my past relationship. There had been no reason for me to do that at work, but maybe Thomas had broken more than just bones.  
Funny how far the mind will go to explain the supernatural, isn't it?  
The next day was fine, I suppose. I finally did some work, kept away from the kitchen as much as possible and didn't think to hard about the fact that all the customers seemed to look exactly the same. I left work almost at the right time, only half an hour to late. No blackouts. I managed to convince myself that everything was alright after all.  
Andrea gave me a wristwatch that day. Nothing too special, just a faux-gold watch with a thin brown leather band. She smiled and told me it was to make sure I wouldn't miss the end of my shifts anymore. To make it easier to keep track of the time. Maybe that was the moment I fell in love with her.  
I had to work the night shift the following day. The diner was open around the clock, I don't know if that's common for the USA or just another strange thing on the long list of nonsense in this particular diner, but I guess it doesn't matter. I drove there after sunset and the parking lot was as empty as ever. I could see customers through the large windows and wondered how they got here, but I pushed my mind away from that thought. It didn't matter, I told myself. Why would it matter?  
The lights inside were too white and too bright and it hurt my eyes when I got in. Anna was there and Vito stood besides her and I tried so hard to tell their distinct features apart that I felt like my brain would just short-circuit if I continued to look at them. I greeted them with a forced smile and decided to distract myself by working.  
I walked up to the first table, greeted them with my best customer-service-smile and asked what I could get them. They were a man and a woman and two children, but their faces all looked exactly the same, yet had no features. I'm not sure if they had eyes. They certainly had mouths because they answered my question, but whatever language they spoke, I had never heard it before in my entire life. The foreign language hurt my ears and I shook my head, asked them if they spoke english, but they simply continued, all four of them talking at once. I walked away, because I couldn't stand listening to them any longer.  
I looked around, there were guests on each table and all of them were talking, yet I wasn't able to understand a single word. It was loud, way too loud and I couldn't do anything but look around, staring at the faceless customers. After a while, the chaotic cacophony seemed to sync up, forming a bone-shattering melody, a metallic screeching that no human throat should even be capable of producing. I covered my ears to block the sound, but it made no difference. They didn't stop singing or talking or screaming and their non-words had no meaning. The suffocating melody pounded against the inside of my skull and I felt like I was about to faint, as a cold hand on my shoulder pulled me out of this terrible trance.  
I spun around and looked at Vito, but there was no way for me to know it was him. He was faceless like the customers and his voice was less than human when he told me that I was needed in the kitchen.  
I shook my head, said that I felt sick, I was dizzy, I had to go home. My whole body was trembling like crazy, but he replied that the whole diner was full and that I was needed tonight. That the guests were hungry. And if he'd had a mouth, he might have smiled.  
I passed by Anna on my way to the kitchen and she told me that I was doing great. I couldn't bring myself to reply.  
While walking to the kitchen, I looked at my wristwatch, expecting that hours had passed. According to the watch, I had stepped into the diner five minutes ago.  
There were only three people in the kitchen now. One was standing in front of a pot again, this time he was pouring spices in. Any spices he could find. Whole packets of salt and pepper and thyme and cinnamon and whatever else he could get his hands on.  
The other was cutting potatos. Cutting them in shapes that were not possible, that seemed to move like an optical illusion, that were far to intricate to be carved with such a large knife.  
The chef was waiting for me. His hand felt like porcelain when he put it on my back and shoved me to the work station he needed me at. I tried to tell him that I felt ill, begged for him to let me go home, but he simply said that my shift wasn't over yet.  
He handed me a sharp knife and a chicken whose head belonged to a rabbit. Then he told me to get rid of its skin. I was crying at this point, paralyzed by fear, but I managed to clutch the knife in my trembling hand and started to skin the creature. It took me a while, because I had no idea what I was doing, but when I was finally done, he handed me something else. A pig, this time, but with the legs of a dog and the beak of a dove and the eyes of a human. I looked at the other cooks. One was still pouring spices in his pot. The other was still cutting potatos. Were they stuck here, just like me? I blinked the tears away and started cutting through the skin of the pig.  
I was sobbing and pleading with them to let me go, but there was no answer. When I was done with my pig, the chef handed me a human arm. I screamed and I cried and I refused to touch the bleeding thing, nausea was almost suffocating me. The singing started again, chaotic and euphoric, a melody that should not exist.  
One cook poured the fifth bag of salt in his pot.  
The other looked at the potato that had countless appearing and disappearing eyes.  
I picked the arm up and it had way to many fingers and not nearly enough fingernails.  
The song reached its crescendo, crawling under my skin and digging deep into my bones. For a moment, the world twisted before my eyes and everything was nothing anymore, a distant memory of sanity while reality lay dead beneath my feet and all that was left was the hymn of this infernal choir.  
Suddenly, all was silent again. The knife fell to the floor, I was able to move again and so I ran, out of the kitchen and back to the front, where Vito was waiting for me. He didn't speak when he told me that my shift was over and my work had been exceptional. The guests had been satisfied, he had said.  
I ran past him, out of the diner, and locked myself into the car. My wristwatch had stopped. The clock in the car said it was just past midnight.  
I drove back home as soon as the dizziness had faded. When I arrived, Andrea ran up to me and hugged me, crying with relieve. Apparently I had been missing for three days. She had looked for me, drove to the address I had given her, but she'd only found the ruins of an abandoned diner.  
I couldn't explain what had happened, where I had been or anything because honestly, I didn't know and the truth just sounded crazy. So I kissed her. She was real, she was human and it seemed right at that time and really, she never gave me any reason to regret it.  
I didn't bother to quit formally at "Vito's". Didn't even drive by that cursed place again. Andrea managed to get me a job as a secretary at the company she was working and one year later, I returned to the UK and Andrea joined me. We live together in Plymouth now and everything is alright. Even though I swear sometimes, when it's really quiet around me, I can still hear the terrible melody.

Statement ends.

I managed to locate Miss Trace, even though her name is Lockley now, after marrying Miss Andrea Lockley in 2015. They are still living in Plymouth with their daughter Caroline.  
Miss Lockley stated that the details of her previous statement are correct and that there's nothing to be added. She's still hearing the before mentioned song from time to time, but I assume that's some kind of auditory hallucination after suffering a traumatic event.  
The diner "Vito's" did exist, owned by one Vito Calivan. As it seems, it was burned down by Mr. Calivan in 1981 after he fell into dept in a desparate try to get some insurance money and was never reopened after that. Mr. Calivan commited suicide two years after that event.  
There's not much more follow-up to be done here, I'm afraid. I have to assume that Miss Lockley's experience was just a detailed nightmare she suffered after the trauma with her former boyfriend. There is one odd thing though. A few people who drove by the area the night of Miss Lockley's disappearence apparently reported strange lights coming from the abandoned diner. Some of them also stated they had heard a metallic sound that had almost sounded like singing.  
End recording."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm honestly not sure what the Stranger's goal was in this. Maybe a failed attempt at the Unknowing. Maybe simply a feast for some Avatars. Think whatever you want, guys.


End file.
